Wednesday, June 3, 2009

Since this is a "Common Sense" Blog, supposedly, I thought I might impose on your patience and list a few rules that I have found to be of help in leading a less stressful life. I would hasten to say that these rules are purely my own, may not suit everybody, so you may discard them, out of hand, or notate them and possibly make your life a little easier.

1. Enjoy, or try to, every single day of your lives. don't end any day feeling like you didn't enjoy it, and failed to accomplish anything. Trust me, I have had over 70 years experience in this old thing we call life, made just about every mistake that its possible to make, tried, mostly, to live a good life, but yet ............................. I cannot but help reflecting on all the things I wish I had done differently. So, gentle person, think about your actions, the possible benefits and hazards of these actions, and you will save yourself more than a few regrets.

2.Get the very best education you possibly can. When I was in grammer school I really, really paid attention and even though I attended a one room, country school, with one teacher for all 8 primary grades, was allowed to skip one grade (the powers-that-be probably thought I was smarter than I actually was), missed almost the entire 8th grade, due to having polio,and yet I still feel like I got a pretty good primary education. But in High School, due to several factors, primarily discovering the wonder and mystery of Girls, and the fun of Basketball, I was not an especially good student, nor was I a whiz at Basketball, and was hardly a Lothario with the girls, but I finally buckled down and took away a lot of things I didn't know when I started. My wife on the other hand, despite probably discovering boys, also discovered she enjoyed learning, Graduated from High School as Class Valedictorian, earned numerous other honors, but still just ended up just married to me, go figure. BUT on more occasions than I care to remember, goodwife has put me in my place, and demonstrated her superior intelligence in doing so.(She had a higher GPA than I did in College too, dang it!) But seriously boys and girls, if you really, really try to excell in any Academic endeavor, I can absolutely guarantee you will bless yourself for doing so.

3. Learn early on in life to willingly stay on a budget , this will save you a lot of grief later in life.

I follow what has become sort of a set of rules of my own. They are as follows: a. Don't spend more than you make. If you buy something that has to financed, you might think that making payments will be no problem, but trust me (again) I think you will find that, sooner or later, the payment will loom large in your mind. b. Never rush out to buy something just because all the others in your peer group are buying the item in question. If you really, really think you just can't live without this Gleaming object, force yourself to wait awhile, and I guarantee you one of two or three things will happen. Either you will find that you really didn't need the item or it will go down sharply in price or it is a "fad" and will fade from view in a short time. If none of these things happen, and you still lust after this thing of Beauty and Status, shop around and get the best price.

4. Save as much money as you can, when you can. An easy way to start to do this, if you just don't think you can possibly save anything, try this....When you receive pennies in change, don't spend them. When you get home at the end of the day, toss them into a jar, bag, box or whatever, and just forget about them. At the end of a year, take the accumulation of copper coins to the bank, have them counted, and open a savings account with them. I think you will be surprised how this will lead you later on to saving more and more money . When my wife and I were expecting our first Child, we stated saving pennies, never, ever spent one, breaking a Dollar bill when necessary to save our pennies, and guess what? By the time Our Son was born, we had enough saved to pay for all the necessary clothing, Diapers, rattle toys, and so one ad infinitum, and guess what again?, we didn't ever feel like we were having to do without something because we had saved our pennies. This is an especially workable plan for the youngsters.

5. Be just as careful with your friends as you are with your money. Friends can either become a lifelong treasure, or a curse, I have had both, and accordingly, have become much more choosy about my friends, and when I make a "Good Friend", I do my dead level best to keep him or her.

One thing I have learned from the hard Primer of Life, is that the "friends" I made in High School, and the "In Crowd" I dearly wanted to belong to, were forgotten within a few years of Graduating from High School. Choose friends that are smarter than you, not worrying about the gap in knowledge, but learning from them, quietly, and if you learn something important, do not hesitate to tell your friend "You know I learned something very important from you" It'll make them feel good and make you feel better, and finally, learn what is inside of your proposed friend.

Appearances are far less important than attributes.

6. Keep your word. If you tell someone you will do something, do it (if its legal), but at the same time, be judicious as to how and when you give your word to someone. There was a time in this Country, when a person's word was their bond, and once given, was assumed to be a given, but if broken, would haunt the person who did not keep their word, for a long, long time, if not forever.

7. Be decent in appearance , behavior and language, you'll feel better for it (I promise) and these habits will stay with you for a good long time, remember, profanity, especially when used in every other sentence, tells the world that you don't have a very good vocabulary. If you develop a good and full vocabulary, it will become a great asset.

8. treat others as you would like to be treated. The Golden Rule may be very aged, but it's gold is still 24 karat.

9. Strive for perfection. You probably won't achieve it, but your efforts will be rewarded with a much finer result.

10. Have fun, smile a lot, develop and use manners, be free with compliments and very stingy and honest with criticisms.

This is all the preaching I will do for today, as I am sure that some, if not all who read this will think or say "That Old Codger is awful free with his advice", and I probably am, but I've lived quite a few years, have all the scars and lumps to show for my tenure, and if someone, anyone, can benefit from my admittedly meager store of knowledge, wonderful , and if not, "No Harm No Foul".

And finally("thank heavens', you say), after or while reading this epistle, you hear a snort echoing through the hills, it'll be my wife.